BART awards $15 million contract for "professional construction management services."
Anybody know what this is for?
Is this part of the long-delayed San Jose extension?
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Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (NYSE: JEC) announced today that it received a contract from the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) to provide on-call construction management (CM) services in support of the agency's Capital Improvement Program and other projects.
The contract has a maximum value of $15 million.
Jacobs will furnish professional construction management services for five years which include resident, field, and office engineering; inspection services; constructability analysis; hazard analysis and safety certification; surveying; material testing; noise and vibration monitoring and data analysis; independent quality assurance oversight; project communication/recordkeeping; cost and schedule management; coordination with other agencies; progress reporting and project closeout; and claims management.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/jacobs-receives-contract-for-san-francisco-bay-area-rapid-transit-projects-100334304.html
It's an on-call contract
It's an on-call contract which means it isn't for any particular project; it probably comes up for renewal every five years. It is usually for relatively small construction jobs that pop up on short notice. Jacobs may have been doing this work for BART for a while now or they may have just won this next five-year contract away from whoever the previous on-call firm was. A large project planned well in advance may have its own construction management contract or it may just go to the on-call firm.
When construction work comes up BART hands them the project file and they take care of planning and managing the actual building of the thingy from start to finish, including quality control, coordinating the work of all the various subcontractors working on the project, and handling all the day-to-day design questions and minor emergencies that go with any construction project.
This is something that every public agency does; it saves them from having to keep a bunch of engineers on staff and doing nothing when there is no work and from having to go through a separate bidding process every time a small project or emergency project comes up.
Seems like it would cost less
Seems like it would cost less than 15 million to keep a couple engineers on staff for 5 years!!
as withak states above, the
as withak states above, the MAXIMUM value is $15 million. it is an on-call contract. these deals typically have a per hour fee that they pay when services are required, and the total amount of services cannot exceed $15 million over the life of the contract.
why would bart do this? it is a hell of a lot quicker, cheaper and easier than putting every little engineering job out to bid separately.
Also keep in mind that if the
Also keep in mind that if the entire $15 million gets used then you are talking about far more than a few engineers. I think the maximum value on these contracts is usually a legal formality; it is extremely rare to actually spend that much on on-call engineering work. I would be amazed if the contract amounted to more than a few million over the five years if The Big One doesn't happen in that time frame.